Hmm

[evilhippo]

For future reference: If you ever go see a show at the Double Door in Chicago, unless you have a serious need to see the band, don't bother standing near the stage. Great goodness the sound there is terrible. Back into the crowd it's fine, even good, but in front of the stage it's just astoundingly bad. I couldn't hear any of the singing. Also, the crowd for Dr. Dog tonight was epically weird. If I had a dollar for every time I was elbowed by the giant hairy old man in front of me who was randomly playing air guitar, I could've bought like, five tickets.

I mean, seriously, it wasn't even a hairy old man playing air guitar sort of concert. Unless you take into consideration all the ridiculous comparisons to The Beatles (they sound kind of similar sometimes, I guess, but personally I prefer my concerts air-guitar-elbow-free, and could do without the back hair sticking out of the shirt, too. Ew. It was like I sacrificed all the polite hipsters from the Mountain Goats concert, and all the enthusiastic unclassifiable people from the Mucca Pazza show and replaced them with frat boys, old men, and obnoxious girlfriends. And a random, very very tiny person smoking pot right next to me, who nearly set my pants on fire with her lighter.)

However! The Cave Singers were quite good, and I may put in an effort to see them again someday, preferably not opening for someone, and at a venue that isn't full of ridiculous people. The other opener, The Golden Boots, was all right, but didn't really leave a lasting impression. So, I guess the moral of the story is "Crowds can make things incredibly un-fun" or maybe "Don't stand in front of the band at the Double Door" or "21+ concerts on Friday nights are often full of people who are there to get drunk/stoned/etc and be obnoxious, beware." Or maybe just "Dr. Dog is much better on their albums, when things are mixed correctly and you can control the volume, and you're not standing there going 'I can't hear any words! And I don't know these songs well enough to sing without words! Also this moron behind me trying to mosh or crowd surf or both is very painful!' and thinking about how much the sunglasses, quirky hats, odd lighting, and energy devoid of mirth make them look like they're actually performing on Saturday Night Live." Conclusion: Concert was surreal, but in a way that left bruises.

Comments

[look-alive.livejournal.com]

I miss Chicago dive bar concerts SO BAD.

Buuuut Ange and I are going to see Margot And The Nuclear So&So's next month! :DDDD

[evilhippo.livejournal.com]

And there are so many of them! Though my favourite so far is the Beat Kitchen, because of the Out of Nowhere Ninja Bouncer. Even though he Out of Nowhere Ninja'd my friend out of the concert for taking an underage sip of beer. (-;

Woo! Where did you see Margot last time? Was it the Empty Bottle?

[look-alive.livejournal.com]

Gah, I know! Dude, that sucks, though. I just miss being able to go to all those cheap shows like, everywhere. Cheap and/or free and then there was the $1.50 PBR night with Mount Saint Helens playing for free at Empty Bottle.

Yeah, that's where they were. It was during Lollapalooza and I guess they opened for someone there and then came straight out to the Empty Bottle gig. The only thing that sucked was all the lame hipster knockoffs that followed them there.

[evilhippo.livejournal.com]

You mean there aren't cheap shows going on all the time out there? That's disheartening. Or can you just not make it to them anymore because of your job?

Oh, there's no escaping the hipster knockoffs at any of these shows, especially around Wicker Park. (-; But ugh... Lollapalooza. It hasn't been good since I've been able to afford going, which figures. I tend to hate it for the dramatic increase in people who think they know what they're talking about when it comes to music, and doing so loudly on the bus, in an attempt to show off. Which is exceedingly dumb when you're on a bus to Hyde Park.

[look-alive.livejournal.com]

No, there are. I'm sure there are. I'm just not familiar with any local bands and I don't have a Diana here to haul me to them forcibly. I could actually go to shows before work if they ended or I could leave before 10:30pm and I didn't drink. So yeah.

I know, but still. It was SO CROWDED. You know how cramped the bottle is, and it was basically all standing room. The only issue I really had was I'd just worked a loong day of suck and my feet hurt.

/snicker/ Yeah idk what good it'd do you going out that way. But still. ...And there's always the L between 7pm and 4am. Me and Diana used to talk loudly about /POSERS AHEM. GIANT POSERS./ when we were sitting on the Blue Line listening to those morons in the middle of the night.

[evilhippo.livejournal.com]

Lately I've actually been finding an odd correlation between how crowded a concert is and how good it is. The denser the crowd, the less entertaining the concert has been. It kind of makes me wonder how the Mountain Goats show was in the alternate universe where they didn't move it into the massively larger Portage Theatre. Someday I'm going to perfect my theory of Obnoxious 20-Something Concert Placement, so I can always find the spots away from the people who stand there going "I remember when they played smaller places and were good!" and the people who get way too drunk and try to set me on fire or knock me over.

That is exactly why I sit quietly on the L at night, especially on the way back from concerts. (-; I remember trying to explain one of them to my mom, since she sometimes calls after shows and demands to be talked-to until I get safely back to my apartment, and I felt like such a poseur sitting there trying to explain the music and how the concert was, like I was phoning in some kind of hipster blog-post. (Hipster blog posts are for once I get home.)

[look-alive.livejournal.com]

I hate crowded concerts. That isn't to say that I haven't been to great concerts which have been crowded, but I guess my thing is that as soon as a band is popular enough to pack an tiny venue like the Bottle, they're too cookie-cutter to be interesting live. This, of course, is not true. My brain tells me it is, though. Explain this theory of Obnoxious 20-Something Concert Placement.

We wanted to go to see Metric in June, but it turns out that the tickets are $70. I mean. WHAT. the heck. I just can't really justify going to see anybody for that much. I guess the Decemberists, if it were the ONLY chance I'd ever get to see them? Dunno.

I miss the L. A lot. The TriMet Max is great, but it's so... clean and... quiet. And the people on it aren't talking to themselves or smelling of pee. I mean, WHERE'S THE CHARACTER? Also, I'm listening to the Guster you gave me and doing a dance at the computer screen. Right now. Yes.